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Thursday, May 07, 02:03:55pm [ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

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Date Posted: 09/24/04 12:28:54pm
Author: Doug Cooper
Subject: First person notes

Boys because this is a 3 day event that actually covers a 3 week campaign, the range of emotions and morale for us will be rather volatile. Based on the words of men in the 6th & 15th TX, the following is a synopsis of what was going through their heads, and the corresponding event days next weekend.

Thursday - we aren't live so lets use it to renew our comradeship and for the CHAPs, conduct our late season meeting. Get organized/check-in, etc.

Friday - several of us have some admin things to do Friday AM. Noon or soon thereafter - muster, inspection and drill at the Cotton Gin on the Franklin Battlefield. Fine tune the cohesion and complete organization.

4:00 PM on - go live. During this portion we are on campaign heading toward Columbia TN. We are generally happy to be on the march, not attacking breastworks and not dealing with Sherman. We are well fed and well clothed for once, and though worn out from constant fighting and marching, we subscribe to that age old soldier's truism: "A change is as good as a rest."

We are skeptical of the Commander generally (because of the high losses and losing of Atlanta) but most of us (not all) support the idea of moving into Tennessee. We are not Georgians, Floridians or South Carolinians and so have no local dog in the "abandoning Georgia" to Sherman fight as those troops do. We have no illusions about the Confederacy's chances in general, as Lincoln has been reelected and that means no let-up in the North's determination to defeat us in detail.

So Friday and Saturday AM we are on campaign preparing to meet the Yankees. The weather has been awful but we are hopeful that Hood's promise to fight the yankees on ground of our choosing and not waste our strength attacking breastworks is sincere.

After the Spring Hill battle on Saturday we all realize that a "great blunder" has occured - we have missed a chance to capture the entire Union force. We generally blame Hood and anybody but Granbury or Cleburne, whom we lionize. We are also aware of some heated words between Granbury and Hood and would be quick to take offense.

Because we missed a chance to destroy Schofield, there is now a feeling running through the ranks of inevitability that the next battle will be very difficult, and as we line up the entire army to assault the works (works we can plainly see are very strong) a somewhat sinking feeling pervades the ranks best summed up by Cleburne's comment to his Brigadier Govan: "Well Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men." This feeling is not much relieved by the spectacle of so many troops in line with bands playing and 100 flags flying.

We are veterans who have seen too much...and know what awaits us. Some of us pin slips of paper to our jackets or place them in our pockets with names and units. Others pass keepsakes to comrades to pass to our families. Officers try to be optimistic but even they know all too well this will be the most desperate charge of all - because we can see all the way to the federal works over a mile away, as well as two brigades that are placed in shallow works in our front and artillery across the river. We think about our homes so far away, our loved ones and steel ourselves to do our best for our comrades to the right and left. We gain strength from Granbury and Cleburne, whom we would follow to hell itself...and are about to fulfill that promise.

We throw ourselves against the works with what one yankee observed was the "very madness of despair."

Sunday: Following Franklin, as we count the cost and observe the awful battlefield, the loss of both Granbury and Cleburne leaves the survivors numbed and with a the feeling of being orphans. We are so angry at Hood many would strike him down for his betrayal of both his promise to us and what amounts to murder in the words of more than a few of our brigade and the army in general. Unlike most events, we will actually experience the loss of comrades at this point as we try to reorganize the company with reduced numbers. The clerk and officers will be busy counting the cost, cataloging effects and writing letters to the next of kin.

Before we can complete these tasks and our morale can completely collapse, Hood marches us off in pursuit of Schofield. We take little solace in the fact that we have possession of the Franklin battlefield, the place where our hopes and dreams died with our comrades.

Those of us who are captured are thankful to be alive, and just as angry at the waste of our army. We remain defiant mostly because we are Texans, but many of us have surrendered before (Arkansas Post) and so know the routine. Every man who surrendered had to make a very difficult choice among bad options. But now we are out of the war, we have done our bit and perhaps our stay won't be long in the north this time.

Off we go to Nashville, in frightful weather with abysmal morale, but with that steadfast determination to do our best, if for no other reason than the bond that exists between comrades, Texans and our keeping faith with our families back home. We know the yankees do not threaten our homes, which is an important distinction for us vs everybody else in the AoT. While troops from other regions worry about their families and the approaching yankees, we at least worry only about economy, the farms, approaching winter and perhaps life after the war. Our desertion rate is tiny - Texas is very far and we don't have loved ones pleading for us to come home and save them. We also have hope that perhaps Texas can live on as before despite a defeated South, should it come to that...a feeling many Texans still feel today - call it self sufficiency, pride or whatever.

In the lines at Nashville we are miserable - it is obvious to every private that we are the besieged, not the yankees, and our destruction or retreat is inevitable. We are resigned to do our best and discipline keeps the Texans in the ranks. Our companions in Ector's Chubbs Infantry Brigade and Sul Ross Cavalry Brigade, the other Texas Brigades in the AoT, as well as Douglas' Battery, keep faith with each other. All will be tested when the Union army, now twice the size of ours, forms for the attack. We fight like the cornered wildcats we are and Texans help save what's left...a pitiful remnant that within two weeks no longer resembles an army.

These notes are gleaned from my readings and are based on both narrative and quotes from Texans, esp members of Granbury's Brigade and the 6th & 15th Texas. Pvt Robert Young of Co A, 15th - laments that he is one of only 3 members of the old company left. He is worn out, but well fed and clothed and able to "stand 4 more years." Lt Robert Collins is rousted out of a hospital in Corinth to rejoin the regiment at Florence after a wound received at Atlanta - he has much to say about Hood and the AoT's experience in Tennessee. Pvt Charles Leuschner of the 6th Texas is captured at Franklin, as many of us would be (34). His diary is a good source of info. McCaffrey's "This Band of Heroes, Granbury's Texas Brigade", Lundberg's new book "The Finishing Stroke, Texans in the 1864 Tennessee Campaign" and Wiley Sword's books contributed to the above as well.

We have been together for years and seen much - we all know the stories of our lives before the war, which are so many distant memories. If you can, write a letter to yourself from family or have someone do it for you. We will share these. Plan to maybe write a letter back home to family as well, or maybe to the family of a lost comrade or the hometown newspaper in McKinney, Clarksville, Dallas, Ft Worth, etc.

Lets stay in first person as much as we can - this was likely the most trying time in their service and perhaps their lives. Bring it alive, trust in each other and lets have a grand time saying thank you to those Texans.

Doug

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